Braves’ Top Prospect Ozzie Albies Suffers Fractured Elbow

12:07pm: The Braves announced that Albies has indeed suffered an olecranon fracture and has had his elbow placed in a fiberglass splint. He’s slated to undergo surgery next week and is presently expected to resume baseball activities in early January.

8:50am: Braves infield prospect Ozzie Albies suffered a fractured olecranon in his right elbow on Wednesday of this week, vice chairman John Schuerholz told the Braves Banter show on BlogTalk Radio (Twitter link). The injury will cost him not only the remainder of the minor league postseason but also the 2016 Arizona Fall League as well, depriving him of some additional development time. David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets that Albies will require surgery to repair the elbow.

Albies, 19, is currently a consensus top 25 prospect, as he rates 14th, 15th, 17th and 21st on the respective midseason prospect rankings of MLB.com, ESPN’s Keith Law, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus. Long developed as a shortstop prospect, the plan for Albies now appears to be for him to play second base in the Majors, where he’ll team up with Dansby Swanson to form what the Braves hope will be one of the top double-play combos in the league for years to come. Albies tore through Double-A pitching as this season, hitting an incredible .321/.391/.467 with 33 extra-base hits (22 doubles, seven triples, four homers) and 21 steals across two stints. A promotion to Triple-A proved more challenging, as Albies slashed .248/.307/.351 through 247 plate appearances before being moved back down, though it should be noted that he was the youngest player in the Double-A Southern League and the Triple-A International League.

The recovery time on the olecranon fracture wasn’t specified, though recent examples of such fractures, including Gavin Floyd and A.J. Pollock, were able to return in late August (Pollock) and September (Floyd) after fracturing their olecranon bones in March (Floyd) and early April (Pollock). That suggests that in an ideal scenario, Albies could be back up to speed come Spring Training next season, where he could well compete with Jace Peterson for the second base job. Of course, individual players recover at different paces, and one can never simply assume that a player’s rehab process will be setback-free, so there’s no firm guarantee that Albies will be ready when Spring Training kicks off.

MLB.com’s Mark Bowman notes that Albies suffered the injury while taking a swing during a Double-A playoff game (brief video included in that link) and has been examined at Dr. James’ Andrews clinic. The team will wait until its own medical staff can make a full evaluation of Albies before issuing a formal announcement and any further details on Albies’ injury.

Yes he is. Difficult to believe he can sustain a .379 BABIP even with his speed but considering his speed and an outstanding 13% strike out rate, I would just be an irrational Braves fan to say it’s all just luck.

Sigh..that Olivera trade is definitely the worst in Coppy’s still very young tenure. He did at least have the back bone to admit it though, and he has done well to mitigate it. But any Braves fan should wish to get a mulligan on that one.

I would want a mulligan on that specific trade, but only to deal Peraza in a better deal.

If Coppy doesn’t deal Peraza then that would make the Swanson acquisition less likely to happen. Chances are he would’ve been less aggressive on that front. And I’d definitely rather have Swanson over Peraza.

The guy slashed .248/.307/.351 as a 19 year old (!) at AAA. Unless something catastrophic happens with his injury, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to need much more development time. I’d bet money he’s going to debut after the super 2 cutoff date in June no matter what.

Albies had gotten off to an absolutely horrible start in AAA (2 for his first 22), but did much better after that start than the final AAA numbers implied. Albies was actually hitting quite well when he was sent back down to AA (8 for his last 24 in AAA) and multiple sources quoted the main reason Albies was sent down was to work at secondbase directly with Swanson at short. He was, however, not consistent and definitely had his struggles in AAA.

The kid has solid potential to be an all-star at an early age, but I don’t see him coming up to Atlanta at the start of the season now. I hope Albies recovers fully. I don’t think the Braves are as concerned with second base too much in the short term with Jace putting up decent numbers there.

Yeah obviously but fan was talking about it like he’s almost ready. It’s impressive for his age but a promotion shouldn’t be considered until he can put together at least average numbers. Preferably at AAA.

Seems a little disconcerting that it happened on a swing, and not some type of blow or trauma (which appears to be the typical cause of an olecranon fracture). Kind of makes you wonder if he has had any problems with that elbow in the past, even as a kid